Surgeon and relief worker add to women's voice

Afghanistan's most respected surgeon, who continued to work during the five years of Taliban rule, is one of two women ministers appointed to the country's new executive council.

Suhaila Seddiqi, a household name in Kabul who is known as the General after she was awarded the military rank during the Soviet era, will serve as health minister.

When the Taliban swept to power in 1996, Dr Seddiqi was fired from her job as head of the surgical department of Kabul's Wazir Akbar Khan hospital and ordered to stay at home.

Months later, the Taliban realised they had a mistake in removing the country's best known surgeon. Dr Seddiqi was asked to return to work and sent to a 400-bed military hospital, where wounded Taliban soldiers were treated.

In an interview at the time, Dr Seddiqi demonstrated her contempt for the Taliban which banned women from the workplace and prevented them from being educated. "I didn't marry because I didn't want to take any orders from a man. Look at us now."

Dr Seddiqi, an independent Tajik, first came to prominence when she was given the rank of general by the pro-Moscow government of Najibullah Siddiq.

She will be joined on the 30-member interim executive council by Sima Samar, who will be the women's affairs minister and one of five vice-chairs. Dr Samar, who has American residence, runs a relief organisation for women Afghan refugees in Quetta across the border in Pakistan.

A member of the minority Hazara ethnic group, Dr Samar was nominated to her post by supporters of the former king.

Sima Wali, director of the Washington-based charity Refugee Women in Development who signed the Bonn agreement as a member of the former king's party, said she hoped that more women would join the government.

"In the future, once we establish long-term institutions, we can make sure women play a major part, both in the governing positions as well as in the civil society," she said.